After 94 years and three months, retired educator Frances Burch continues to celebrate the gift of life, and lives each day with the same interest and enthusiasm she has always done.

She may not be as quick on her feet now, but her mind remains sharp and focused. To spend time in her presence is to experience a charm and graciousness all too often missing in today's women. Poised and eloquent, with dark eyes that twinkle when she smiles, she is the very embodiment of a lady.

"I am what I am. I can't change," she says of her mien.

Yet the very same qualities which have endeared her to all who have known her once counted for nothing during the dark days of segregation. Raised in the Anglican church, and gifted with a lovely singing voice, she sought to join the senior choir but was barred on the basis of her colour.

Similarly, her polite request for a ticket to the balcony of the newly-opened Island Theatre was firmly rejected by the white cashier just one day after she had attended its grand opening with her (late) husband, Collingwood Burch, who was then a Member of Colonial Parliament (MCP).

Not one to behave badly, however, Mrs. Burch simply took her talent and custom elsewhere. She joined Allen Temple AME Church, and at 17 became the leading soprano in its senior choir.

In terms of the theatre issue, she simply left it to her (late) daughter Rosalind, an active member of the group which successfully fought and won the battle against segregation at the theatres and elsewhere, to bring about change.

Mrs. Burch's long journey on the road to becoming an exemplary educator began at West End School, and continued at the Berkeley Institute. Unable to go on to Canada or Jamaica for teacher training, she then took advantage of elementary education training at Berkeley, which qualified her to teach first at Sandys Secondary School, then at Southampton Glebe, where she remained for a decade.

During this time she married her first husband, Percival Ratteray, and had four children, Rosalind and Leonetta (both of whom became teachers), Ellsworth (who became a bailiff) and Randolph (formerly telecommunication supervisor at BTC).

Remarried to Collingwood Burch, she then joined Francis Patton School, where she spent 19 happy years shaping the lives of young Bermudians, both academically and socially.

Popular with students, staff and parents alike, compulsory retirement was an unwelcome milestone at 65, but Mrs. Burch need not have worried. She was soon invited to teach at the Junior Training School on Paget Island, an institution devoted to steering juvenile males who had run afoul of the law off on to a better path in life.

Three years later, as she was thinking of retiring, the call came to teach at the Senior Training School. Located behind the Opera House in St. George's, it was "home" to male offenders aged 16-21, and her appointment lasted seven years, during which time she also took a rehabilitation course in England in order be a more effective teacher.

"The young men's achievement level was low and I tried my best to bring it up," Mrs. Burch remembers. "I treated them as human beings who needed academic training, discipline and respect for themselves and others in order to be good citizens of Bermuda. They were very good actually, and I encouraged them to further their education when they were released."

Among her successes was an inmate who became an ordained AME minister, and who still gives her a kiss whenever they meet. From the Senior Training School, Mrs. Burch eased into retirement by teaching privately before finally calling it a day as an educator.

Looking back on her long career, the woman who numbers doctors, lawyers, beauticians and teachers among her former students, says she does not agree with "having all this modern technology" supplanting much of the curriculum with which she was familiar, and which she believes produced such well-rounded students.

English was a very important subject, and in addition to grammar, spelling, punctuation and composition, students were taught how to speak well, pronounce words correctly, and also do memory work.

She still remembers with horror a directive from the Department of Education instructing teachers not to teach English grammar, which she duly protested, saying she could not possibly teach composition or comprehension without including at least some of it.

"I couldn't imagine what that would do to the children's speech and behaviour," she says. "I also taught elocution, singing and needlework, and General Knowledge, which embraced not only what was happening in Bermuda, but also deportment - how to speak on the telephone, how to dress for different occasions, how to eat, and table manners."

Mrs. Burch notes, too, that in her day teaching was viewed as a vocation, not just a job, and the small pay cheque mattered far less than turning out well-rounded young citizens.

In fact, teachers routinely went the extra mile simply through dedication and the desire to see their students succeed. The mother of four treated all of her young charges as her own, handling them with love and respect. Parents backed the teachers, and were "very cooperative".

"I never had any trouble," she says. "I wanted to be a teacher and I always did my best."

Viewing today's society, Mrs. Burch says things are very different.

"There is quite a change of attitude compared to when I was younger. We have become much more materialistic in our thinking, and the principles of etiquette seem not to be adhered to."

Rows of framed certificates and citations on the walls of her-well appointed Southampton home attest to the varied and important contributions Mrs. Burch has made not only to local education but also to the community in general.

In 1976 she received the Queen's Certificate and Badge of Honour for outstanding services to the youth of Bermuda, and in 1982 became a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for her contributions to education, community and Government. She was made a Fellow of the Bermuda College in 2001 in recognition of "honourable service to the community and in the cause of learning".

Her many Certificates of Appreciation include those from the Somerset Cricket Club Trojanettes Majorettes and the Matilda Smith Williams home, and there is even one as runner-up in the Glamourous Grandmothers competition.

Mrs. Burch's long list of civic duties includes 29 years' membership in the Bermuda Business & Professional Women's Association, some of them as deputy chairman, ten years as a member of the Women's Hospitals Auxiliary (Pink Ladies), ten years with the Miss Bermuda beauty pageant, and 20 years as a member of the Special Court Panel, dealing with juvenile offenders.

She was also a Sunday school teacher, and a former secretary of the Golden Hour (seniors) club.

Initially trained by (the late) Mr. Joseph Richards, Mrs. Burch sang soprano with the Bermuda Philharmonic Society for 20 years, and was also a member of the Bermuda Musical & Dramatic Society chorus.

She loves to read fiction, and regards her favourite quotation, "This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man" from Shakespeare's `Hamlet', as a yardstick to live by. She also instilled it in her students, and once used as the subject of a Mother's Day speech.

Slowed somewhat by a heart attack, Mrs. Burch nonetheless remains upbeat and productive. "I thank God every day for keeping me as I am - my brain, my faculties - mainly I am fine, but physically impaired" is how she puts it.